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“Smart, good-looking and driven” reads like a resume for successful high-achievers in the city, but Australia’s smartest working dogs can find their temperament is a recipe for disaster in the big smoke.

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Vets are noticing an increase in anxiety among popular breeds of dogs

Experts say working dogs living in cities need mental stimulation

Dog therapy and behavioural classes are increasing in popularity

Border collies and kelpies are turning up in increasing numbers to dog therapy clinics and behaviour classes as desperate urban owners try to find ways to channel their pet’s inherent physical and mental energy.

Behavioural veterinarian Nicole Lobry de Bruyn said working dogs — including kelpies, kelpie crosses, border collies and German shepherds — were particularly susceptible to behavioural issues.

“We tend to see an increase in anxiety in breeds that become popular,” 她说.

“So when breeds become popular you have more indiscriminate breeding, and when people start breeding for colour they may not be focussed on temperament.”

Mental stimulation needed

Ms Lobry de Bruyn runs Animal Sense, a clinic providing help to owners of dogs that jump at shadows, bark at anything and exhibit signs of anxiety.

“Generally they are high-drive dogs, so they need lives that are fully enriched, but not just with physical exercise, “她说.

“They need, especially when they are living in the metro area, the mental enrichment.”

One of her patients is Vader, a two-year-old kelpie living on a semi-rural property on the outskirts of Perth.

Owner Kelly Thatcher had spent hours training him but soon came to the realisation he was a highly reactive dog.

“The trouble we are having with him is resource guarding, barking at things, herding and chasing the cats and that sort of thing,” Ms Thatcher said.

“I’ve been trying everything I can to make sure he’s as happy as he can be in the environment that he’s in.”

Sheep help anxiety issues

Ms Lobry de Bruyn said it was a complex procedure to find out why a dog was anxious, requiring “slow, kind and very gradated work”.

“We look at the frequency, the intensity and the duration of some of these behaviours because it’s normal for dogs to bark to dig and it’s normal for dogs to jump up,” 她说.

“And then we work on modifying, changing the emotion behind the behaviour.”

In conjunction with the anxiety therapy sessions, Ms Thatcher also takes Vader to training sessions with Simon Leaning, who has been training and working with sheepdogs for the last 20 years in the Perth Hills.

“I had a lot of people asking me for help with their dogs,” Mr Leaning said.

“Some of them, a lot of them, were city dogs that just needed some stimulus, mental stimulus to get them out of their behaviours that might be causing some destruction or problems at home.

“Anti-social behaviour, barking, shadow chasing, chasing bikes other sorts of things like that, and we found that herding was a good solution to a lot of those problems.”

PHOTO:Tilly has been attending behavioural classes with Simon Leaner in the Perth Hills. (ABC新闻: Mark Bennett)

“I thought about it a lot. Months and months, whether I could handle one, but I did want a smart dog and I wanted a dog that would push me, active and walking and running and stuff so it’s been good,” 他说.

“Think about it for a few months and consider it, and maybe spend some time with another owner of a kelpie because they are readily available.

“There’s lots of them around, but, in the wrong hands, it’s pretty cruel.”

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